A fundamental principle of Feminist Therapy is that “the personal is political.” This is a term taken from Second Wave Feminism and refers to the idea that the problems a person experiences are often social – or political – in nature, rather than individual issues. As someone who practices from a Feminist Therapy perspective I see this concept at work every day in sessions with clients – seeing how broader social issues, including access to health care, affordable housing, racial, social and economic injustice, and human rights concerns – impact a person’s mental health.
Therefore, as an advocate, I want to make an argument for the Democratic Party to respond to its recent election failure by making a significant move to the left, becoming the progressive party that the Republicans are constantly accusing them of being. Let it become the “party of Bernie Sanders and AOC”!
First a little background – I’m old enough to remember when the Democratic Party would regularly nominate more liberal presidential candidates and then lose the elections – often badly.[1] Then they started moving to the center and were initially successful with Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996.
That was largely the playbook for both parties at the time – even more conservate candidates like Reagan had to try to appear more moderate. This was also a time when most information was spread through mainstream media sources – The New York Times, the Washington Post, even CNN starting in 1980. Information was filtered through inherently moderate media sources (with a few notable, but relative low volume exceptions like the Village Voice in NYC).
That all changed – in 2006 Facebook became available to the general public and Twitter was created. In addition to the mainstream media there was now a chance for individuals to connect with no filtration system, and also to share information from global media sources that weren’t largely accessible previously. Social media has obviously had some negative effects, but it has also had some positive impacts, including connecting communities of common interests – in particular, marginalized and oppressed groups (e.g., LGBTQ+ individuals who might have previously felt totally isolated; and connecting BLM protestors in Ferguson with Palestinian activists). It also gives a platform for voices that might have struggled in the past to get access to mainstream media sources (e.g., AOC).
The point is that the political information landscape has changed significantly – leaving more space for previously ignored voices (ignored by a mainstream media that is owned by large corporations who don’t necessarily want progressive ideas to be heard). So the structure is in place for a real and significant move to the left by the Democratic Party.
But why do it?
Progressive politics is about centering social, racial and economic justice and human rights more broadly, and working to create equal opportunity for everyone. The details will vary, but among the proposals are providing universal access to high-quality health care, advancing the right of every American to retire with security and dignity, ending poverty and income inequality and securing a living wage for everyone, ending mass incarceration, upholding fundamental reproductive rights, advancing racial justice and equity, and much more (Source: The Progressive Promise from the Progressive House Caucus).
The idea of a Democratic Party that fully embraces and represents progressive politics is not that these ideas will all immediately come to fruition – it is so that these ideas get a fair hearing in the public. Many of these things would undoubtedly be very popular among some percentage of working class people who voted for Trump. Regardless of the outcome, it would move us to become a country where we are having full and honest conversations of a full range of ideas, not starting from the center – or compromised – position that Democrats currently do.
There will be many pundits (all of them really) who will decide over the coming weeks why Kamala lost the election. They will all be right and wrong. I’m not going to try to join them here except to say that, observationally, she made a few steps along the way that alienated a lot of progressive voters. Did that cost her the election? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised. A couple of specific examples include her broad support of Israel as it engages in genocide in Gaza and refusing to even allow Palestinian voices to be heard at the DNC, and her embrace and active campaigning with Liz Cheney, a committed conservative despite turning on Trump.
These and other things she did during the campaign put me in the position of begrudgingly voting for her, and I know the same is true of others – and its very likely that many people couldn’t vote for her for those reasons, even begrudgingly. She left a lot of people who are traditionally Democrats feeling powerless – the party can make a turn, move to the left, give voice to more people and put a serious effort into enacting laws to help a lot of people and help the country live up to its founding promises – to wit:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” (Preamble to the Constitution of the United States)
[1] E.g., 1968 – Nixon defeats Humphrey 301-191 in the Electoral College (even with George Wallace drawing 45 electoral votes); 1972 – Nixon defeats McGovern 520-17 in the Electoral College; 1984 – Reagan defeats Mondale 525-13 in the Electoral College; and 1988- Bush defeats Dukakis 426-111 in the Electoral College [https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections]
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